


because the vision softly creeping

by FreezingRayne



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Gem Fusion, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 16:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18253361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezingRayne/pseuds/FreezingRayne
Summary: You are awash in energy. You’ve never performed a fusion dance before, but your body knows exactly what to do, the same way it knows how to walk and talk and open its eyes. The awareness of Lapis fills you up from head to gem, and you breathe in all the ways you are similar and the ways you are different.





	because the vision softly creeping

**Author's Note:**

> Written for sora107 on twitter. Pleasure doing business!

The days when Steven visits are the best days. 

Actually, there are lots of good days on Earth. You’ve even begun to appreciate “weather”. The rain is good for the crops, and Pumpkin likes to splash in the puddles it leaves behind in the muddy ground. Wind feels nice on your face and it makes Lapis’s skirt flap around her legs in a shivery cascade. “Snow” sounds like a made up thing that Steven told you about to get your goat. Also possibly “get your goat” is made up. Sound like a Steven-ism. 

“Peridot! Lapis!” 

Today Steven has brought his friends Connie and Lion, both of whom you like okay. Lion immediately wanders off into the meadow to sniff at the heather and sneeze the heads off dandelions. Connie stays with Steven and watches him set up a pair of speakers. He connects them to his phone with some sort of archaic Earth tech known as “blue tooth”. 

“What’s it for?” 

“For music!” 

“Why?” 

“So we can dance?” 

“But why?” 

“Because it’s fun!” 

And that’s when they start twirling and prancing and giggling and doing weird stuff with their hips. The larger Universe arrives with his van and sets up a grill, unpacking slabs of frozen meat product. He waves cheerily at you with his spatula. Every so often he puts it down to run and join Steven and Connie, when a song comes on that he especially seems to like. 

Steven is right. It does look like fun, and you’re thinking about joining in, maybe just casually, not a huge deal, when Lapis lands next to you. She moves into her customary slump with her long blue arms wrapped around her knees. You stay where you are. You doubt Lapis wants to dance, and you don’t want to make her feel left out. 

“What are they...doing?” 

“Dancing.” 

“Just...out in the open like this? I front of everyone?” 

“I don’t think Pumpkin minds. Or the corn.” You hunch over, unconsciously mirroring her posture. “And dancing is different for humans. It isn’t about fusions.” 

“Steven fuses.” 

“Right, yeah, but it doesn’t have to be.” 

“Oh yeah? Then what do you call that?” 

“What--oh!” 

You look up just in time to see Connie and Steven twirl, giggle, and fuse. Their fusion stands up taller, older, and hairier. You can’t help it and let out a little yelp of surprise. You’re fine, though. You just weren’t ready for it. “You’ve seen them do it before, though. Haven’t you?” 

“Yeah,” Lapis hunches lower. “But that was during a fight! This is just--!” 

Lion joins in on the dance, stomping his big pink feet and whirling around chasing his tail. It really looks like fun. Not the fusing part! Although it might be interesting from a purely scientific standpoint. To be that tall, that graceful, to see what your pigmentation would look like when combined with someone else’s. Someone blue, maybe...

Stop! You smack your hands against your face before these dangerous thought experiments go any further. You don’t talk about fusion with Lapis. That’s just one of the many rules. The rules aren’t written down anywhere, but you’re learning them nevertheless. Beside you, Lapis’s shoulders are bunched up next to her ears and she’s staring at the ground. 

You get up and skirt the dancefloor--or dancegrass--to go talk to Greg. Maybe get him to explain burgers to you again. You’ll get into an argument about how stupid Earth things are, and you’ll put all of this from you mind. You never have to talk about fusion again. 

Or, that’s the plan, but things don’t always go the way you expect. Especially on Earth, which seems singularly designed to ruin every single plan you make. 

Lapis is quiet all the way through the picnic, and the through the songs Greg plays on his loud stringed instrument, that Steven accompanies on his softer one. She’s quiet after the humans, Steven, and Lion leave.

You tidy up the picnic space and clean the dishes in the pump out behind the barn. When you take Pumpkin out on her evening walk, Lapis vanishes into the trees. All you can see of her is a shimmer of pearlescent wings in the distance. 

She doesn’t come back until well after sunset, which is when the two of you usually watch TV. You’re currently working your way through a show about a group of young humans attending a magical school. They are all very emotional and they kiss a lot. Usually the two of you speculate all through the episode, arguing over who should be kissing who. You often have to go back and replay scenes, but neither of you minds. It annoys Steven when you do that, but he isn’t here right now. 

Tonight you can tell Lapis isn’t focusing and it stresses you out. You have trouble enjoying things when she’s distracted or upset. Sometimes you wish you could reach a hand inside her and pull all the sadness out. Build her inside structure back up the same way she could rebuild her physical form. 

“What do you think.” Lapis’s mouth snaps shut. You pause the show, because it sometimes takes her a couple tries to get something out. “What do you think it feels like. Do think fusing with a human is different from fusing with a gem?” 

“Um.” You force your wildly spinning mind to quiet down for long enough to actually think about the question. You don’t know, but you’ve never actually fused with anyone at all. Not even with other Peridots. Fusing is for the lower classes. Martial gems, Rubies and Amethysts and Jaspers. To feel yourself so thoroughly combined with another gem, consciousnesses falling inward--that sounds terrifying. But also...exhilarating.

“You know, Garnet once asked me if I wanted to fuse with her.” 

The words rings in your ears, and it takes you a second to realize that you have said them out loud. Lapis is staring at you. 

“I-I told her no!” You scramble. Why did you say that? She’s going to think you’re bragging, which maybe you are a little bit, even though you’re pretty sure Garnet had just been being nice, just trying to make you feel more at home--

“Jasper didn’t ask. She didn’t ask me if I wanted to fuse. She just demanded it, and told me to say yes.” 

Lapis turns her head so her hair blocks her face. If the two of you weren’t inside the barn, she would probably spread her wings and take off. She’s knocked down enough pieces of furniture that you’ve managed to convince her not to do that. Sometimes you wonder if you should magnetize a piece of metal and fly after her. Maybe that’s what she wants you to do. Chase her. Or maybe she wants the opposite. Maybe she wants space. You don’t know. If you ever ask her, she tells you she doesn’t want anything at all. 

“Do you…” You steal a glance at her. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Talk about it?” Lapis’s shoulder blades stand out sharp between the straps of her dress. “What is there to talk about?” 

“I don’t know.” Ugh, this always goes so much better when Steven is the one getting people to open up about their feelings. “Like...how it was bad? And maybe...uh…” 

Lapis looks at you, eyes burning, and for one moment you think she is going to yell. She’s done it before. So have you. But then she looks back down, hands gripping the opposite elbows. Her nails dig dark blue tracks into her skin. 

“It wasn’t bad,” she says. “Or, it was. It was so, so awful. She forced me to fuse, and then I forced her to stay with me. When we were Malachite, all we did was hurt each other, but--but I wasn’t…” She shakes her head. “Never mind. It’s not important.” 

She doesn’t say anything else, but when you put the show back on she pays attention, and very slowly, the tension from her shoulders begins to uncoil. 

\--

The next morning Lapis goes out flying, and you stay behind and try to understand this bluetooth situation. From your research you quickly learn that it is a totally ridiculous and obsolete form of technology that drains your phone’s battery far too quickly. So you just fiddle with a set of speakers that you borrow from Greg, supplemented with some of the repurposed tech that you’d skimmed from the Ruby ship while it was grounded. You hack into a popular music streaming service and route it through the speakers. Then you spend a few hours in a spiralling panic because there are just so many choices. 

There is music on Homeworld, but it’s ceremonial. No one listens to it just for enjoyment.. But Earth has so much! And a lot of it is bad. 

In the end you text Steven and beg him for help. He responds immediately, sending you the playlist he had been using at the picnic the other day, renamed “Jamzz for Peridot ::))” 

You put it on and, well...you don’t actually mean to dance, it just sort of happens. This music gets inside your body the way it never had on Homeworld. 

“What are you doing?” 

You jump a foot into the air, which is impressive considering you are only about three feet tall. “Uh...just, uh, testing out this obsolete Earth audio equipment. And I got...lost in the rhythm?” 

“Oh.” 

Lapis is wet. Is it raining, or has she been swimming? For the longest time she wouldn’t get anywhere near the lake on the property, even though water bends to her will. That’s like if you were afraid of getting anywhere near metal. Which is ridiculous, of course, considering your incredible mind powers. 

Well, admittedly if you’d spent months trapped beneath the suffocating crush of of metal struggling to stop yourself from succumbing to the overwhelming cognitive pressure of a toxic fusion, you might feel differently. 

You don’t know why you do it. The music spins around the both of you, rhythmic and desperate. You raise a hand in an offer for Lapis to join you. 

The thud of the bass calls you out. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why are you doing this? Why are you pushing? 

You don’t know. You’re going crazy on the dance floor. Just...once upon a time you locked yourself in a room and refused to listen to anyone. The whole world fell apart and you were prepared to fall apart with it. But Steven wouldn’t let you. He poked and prodded and annoyed you until you got up and followed him out into the sun. 

You aren’t an expert on Lapis, or on her feelings. You aren’t even an expert on your own feelings. But you don’t think treating Lapis like a delicate piece of glass is going to help anything. 

If the music really wanted to help you out, it would swell to a crescendo right here. At least it wouldn’t deteriorate into something screechy and weird. But, like most things on this planet, the moment seems specifically designed to get on your nerves.

Lapis takes your hand even without the assistance of a musical cue. Her palm is cool and smooth. Sensation shoots up your arm in a tingling rush. It’s a bit like when you first attach your limb extenders, but down inside the core structure of you. 

You are awash in energy. You’ve never performed a fusion dance before, but your body knows exactly what to do, the same way it knows how to walk and talk and open its eyes. The awareness of Lapis fills you up from head to gem, and you breathe in all the ways you are similar and the ways you are different. 

You feel the placid shell of her, the glowing exterior as reflective as the mirror she was trapped inside. You catch her as she falls into a dip, her hair floating in a diaphanous flood, face intent. She is terrified of what the two of you are doing. You understand that just as the two of you fall into each other and don’t come out the other side. 

The physical sensation is a bit like being “poofed” as Steven calls it; losing your physical form and retreating back into your gem. But it also feels like the opposite of that. A buzzing euphoria that starts at the core of you and moves out in building waves—you feel like you’re growing, expanding…

And you are--of course you are. Because you’re a fusion. 

You hold up long blue-green arms. Your hands are thin and delicate, nails smooth and rounded at the tips. You don’t have any mirrors in here, but you don’t need to see yourself to see yourself. 

You laugh. The sound is warm and musical. You dance a few steps, and you are so much more graceful than you have ever been. 

Wait, _that’s_ completely absurd. You’ve been graceful since you came into being. 

No, that isn’t right either! Because you aren’t “you” anymore

The name bubbles up from the deep. Turquoise. _Turquoise._

Turquoise takes one step, then another. She spins to the music and raises her arms. She wants to leave the floor, let the pressure inside her burst upward, but it’s too close in here. She is reminded of the countless prisons she’s spent her life inside--mirrors, oceans, ships, and the prisons of her own misguided loyalty to an authority that doesn’t care if she lives or shatters.

She flees the barn, and her reflection on the water as she speeds between the lake and the moon is that of a creature larger and more terrifying than a gem, and her wings feel strange. Circling back around, she alights on top of the barn. She stretches her wings out, catching hold of one of them and pulling it down to look at. She hisses as the sharp feather cuts into her hand. Metal. Her wings are made of metal. And the part of her that was formed for combat—all gems are soldiers, to think otherwise is foolish—knows that she could use these wings to rip her enemies to shreds. 

She likes that. She doesn’t usually feel so formidable. If Jasper came at her now, she could shatter her to tiny pieces. Or she could lock her up somewhere cold and remote, holding her there for no one to look at. No one except Turquoise. 

The thought spreads through her in a mingling ripple of disgust and elation, and she isn’t sure which one sets off which feeling. She burns inside. Her head hurts. She launches herself back into the sky. 

“WHY AM I DOING THIS?” 

She yells it out loud, even though she doesn’t know what she means. Fusing, flying, freaking out. Living. Staying here on Earth, bothering to do anything at all when the cluster could emerge at any moment, or when the Diamonds could descend on the planet and kill everyone here. 

Panic thrashes inside her. She doesn’t know how to calm down or feel better. All of her emotions are magnified by the fusion. 

It’s only when she sees the head of the statue on the beach that she realizes where she is flying to. She drops like a cannonball and clatters down on the porch of the little wooden house. Inside are the Crystal Gems. Steven stands at the counter and watching his dinner spin in the microwave. Pearl and Garnet sit on the couch, while Amethyst switches between forms—a horse, a dog, a garbage can, a playstation. 

And suddenly Turquoise knows she can’t stay here. Steven will run out in earnest excitement at the sight of a new gem, exclaiming in delight as he realizes who the fusion is. He’ll call out to the rest of the Crystal Gems, who will all fawn at what an incredible act of growth and defiance it is. And she can’t stand that. She feels sick. A dizzying pain cuts through her, and she collapses back onto the sand with two distinct thuds. 

\--

You remember this bone deep ache. When you came out of the ocean, if felt like you were dead. There was no way you could feel so utterly drained and not be just a pile of shards on the shore. Beside you, Peridot is laid out spread eagled, her eyes closed. You watch her through the screen of your hair. 

It was hard to tell which parts of you were her and which parts were yourself—you’d blended into each other more than you and Jasper ever had—but you did feel the fear and unease that ran through her like a flaw in a jewel. She is so terrified of doing or saying the wrong thing. Making you angry enough that one day you just leave her behind. And you know she felt the deep, furious core of you. You do your best to keep it hidden, like a vicious underwater current beneath the surface of a placid lake. You don’t want her to know the part of you that reveled in the control when you held Jasper down at the base of the ocean, when your minds and bodies slid together in a sick, gorgeous pressure. 

“Are you okay?” 

Peridot gives you a swift, hunted look. Her cheeks go bright green. Did she see something in your memories? Something about...Jasper, maybe? Or is she embarrassed of what you’d seen in her mind? That even though she’s spent time in Yellow Diamond’s court around the highest classes, you are still the most beautiful gem she has ever met. She wants you to understand her, and she wants you not to be sad anymore. 

You don’t know if you’ll ever be able to give her that, and it hurts. You can’t just expel the fears and the injury, the certainty that something inside of you is inherently broken. You can’t guarantee that one day you won’t panic and leave her the way she’s afraid you will. 

You wish you had the words to tell her this. Maybe someday you will be able to. But right now you just reach out and take her hand. It’s warm from the sand. She makes a little noise of surprise, but then her fingers curl around yours. 

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do that again,” you admit. 

“It’s alright,” she says swiftly. “I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have asked, it was—.” 

“No.” You squeeze her hand. “You asked me, and I said yes.”


End file.
